LAST year Americans spent billions on medical care. And the pharmaceutical industry tells us the system is working. More and more doctors are feeling great.

That survey was, of course, conducted on the golf course. Greens fees will soon be paid by Medicare.

Actually, people without health insurance might take courage from the fact that the one advantage to being poor is that a physician will cure you faster.

Today if your own genetics don’t do you in, TV can knock you off. The commercials preach such doom and gloom that you get the feeling just breathing is dangerous to your health.

Sally Field whimpers, “I only have this one body.” Well, she can stop worrying about bone density and osteoporosis. She’s so full of Boniva that if she fell down, the sidewalk would crack.

I heard an authoritative voice stress how stress is bad for you. It advised women who have old parents, young children, middle-aged siblings, car-pool schedules, meal schedules, shopping to be done, dogs to go to the vet, demanding jobs and demanding husbands to get relief with Tylenol or Phenobarbital or a good divorce lawyer named Ingersol.

And every channel thumps Lipitor. Everyone with heart problems should have it, they say. Everyone should have it in the house, they say. Everyone should have it in their medicine chest, they say. Everyone should have it right at hand, they say. And then they say, “But Lipitor is not for everyone.”

There’s some potion guaranteed to be so great that come Christmas you should give it in a gift certificate. But it lists 71 symptoms that if you already have one of them, better not take this because – and then they list 75 things that could happen if you take it when you already have one of those 71 other things. In other words, you should definitely take it but possibly you could vomit, bleed, get nauseous, develop hangnails, fever, redness, pain, feel faint, lose your sex drive, your shoulder could fall off and you might limp. Should any of these things happen, they suggest chicken soup.

Question: Whatever happened to that nice little friendly GP who once made house calls? Today nobody makes house calls except cable repairmen and burglars. Not even plumbers. Plumbers now want you to bring the sink to them – but that’s a whole other column.

There’s that old lady who looks straight into the camera and tells us, “All senior citizens should have Life Alert.” Seems like such a nice lady that you wonder why her family isn’t supporting her so at this age she doesn’t have to do commercials.

Wilford Brimley hustles a remedy for diabetes, which he pronounces “diabetiss,” and there’s a hemorrhoid prescription that looks to me like a pain in the butt. There’s stuff for the urinary tract, the digestive tract, Aricept for Alzheimer’s, Aleve for pain, Humira for psoriasis, Caduet for blood pressure, Gardasil for something else, Crestor for cholesterol. I flicked the dial so fast that it seemed they said if you take enough Crestor they guarantee you a halfway shot at getting cholesterol . . . but maybe I’m wrong.

Isn’t anyone healthy? Anyone? Anywhere? On programs where the pitchmen themselves are sneezing and have pompadours higher than their red-blood-cell counts, it’s Centrum and Vaseline and Advil and the Visiting Nurse Service.

Every human being alive’s falling apart? This one doctor, when we could get him off the 18th hole, told my friend she was in good shape for a woman of 60. My friend was upset. She’s only 39.

One channel tells you to floss or your teeth will fall out. On another it’s exercise or your heart will give out. Someone’s hawking glop that if you don’t buy now . . . now . . . right now . . . your skin will dry out. Someone else is warning if you don’t brush 150 times your hair will fall out. If I brushed 150 times every day even my scalp would fall out.

Companies have discovered a new target for marketing preventatives. Brides. It’s Botox for brides. And their maids of honor, mothers-in-law and bridesmaids. Soon also their grooms and best men. Maybe even a wholesale rate for guests. Or a kosher strain for rabbis. Nobody in the entire bridal party will have one frown line – until the first anniversary.

And how about Viagra? The little blue pill? Men should call a doctor if they have an erection lasting more than four hours? Please. Any guy in heat that long should call Pamela Anderson direct.

If you’re not shooting something in or trying to get something out, it’s pink pills you swallow down, yellow pills you stick up, plus red and green pills to direct the traffic.